


Stalemate

by vvverbatim



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Drabble, Edward Elric Keeps Automail, Edward Elric Swears, Fuhrer Roy Mustang, Implied Relationships, M/M, Post-Promised Day, Sparring, Three Years Later, but only his leg, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29265273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vvverbatim/pseuds/vvverbatim
Summary: “Frankly, I don’t trust any of you to spar with me. Your form, posture, whatever, are all too sporadic and I’m not gonna have that on my conscience if I end up hurting any one of you all.”Moore spoke up.“Then, uh, how will you demonstrate proper sparring, sir?”“With me, private.” Ed could hear the privates’ eyes move from his figure to the Führer’s own. Even rarer than witnessing one national hero spar was to see him fight hand-to-hand with the leader of Amestris. Some of the soldiers fought the urge to pinch themselves awake.
Relationships: Edward Elric & Roy Mustang, Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Comments: 5
Kudos: 141





	Stalemate

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first foray into FMA/FMAB as a fic writer! I'm in the process of writing a much longer plot-heavy fic that I needed a break from so this was the end result. I always liked the idea that Ed would wear Amestrian Military uniforms after Mustang became the Führer so here we have Colonel!Ed.  
> ~waves hands~ hope you enjoy!

“Do you see this? Tell me you see this.”

“I do and I think it’s giving me back pain.”

“Are you sure it’s not just because you’re old as shit?”

“I’m barely thirty-five. I don’t think that constitutes being called ‘old as shit’.”

Ed made a noncommittal noise as they watched the privates flounder around as they sparred with one another. The two men sparring on the middle of the mat were falling down constantly and taking too much time to come back up. Neither were willing to tap out and it made Ed’s neck hurt.

Führer Roy Mustang stood next to Ed, in his blue regalia and peaked cap that announced him as a high ranking official, though Ed would be hard-pressed to believe that anyone in Amestris would need the cap to know that Mustang was more than the Colonel he once was. Mustang, though, kept his hands behind his back and watched as the set of privates, a little to the left of where they were standing, performed a move that was a little too dangerous and a lot too careless for either of their tastes. The privates may be training one another and getting the physical practice in for when they may have to actually use their hand-to-hand combat, but that didn’t mean that the soldiers, Mustang’s soldiers, had to maim each other just to impress the visiting Führer.

They watched as the light-haired of the two was flipped over and came close to slamming his head down onto the mat. Just because it was padded didn’t mean that it could prevent bones from breaking or causing damage.

“God, that didn’t look good at all. What the fuck are they thinking? That move could have broken his neck!” Ed bristled, crossing his arms across his chest and on top of his Colonel uniform. It was constricting and the wool made him too warm on a clear Spring day, much like the one it was now. Sighing, Ed turned to Mustang, who had been keeping his eyes on the same duo for the past fifteen minutes now, wondering if there was a personal reason as to why the two men were practically ripping at each other’s throats during what was supposed to be a simple sparring exercise.

Ed stared up at Mustang, who was still a few inches taller than he was three years after the Promised Day, and shot him a look. Mustang, having known Ed for the majority of the younger man’s life, knew exactly what he was trying to get across, and made a slight nod.

“Thank fuck.” Ed muttered under his breath as he began to walk over to the ostentatious privates throwing punches at each other’s faces.

“Be mindful of the coat! The next one’s coming out of your pay if you manage to ruin it.” And Mustang didn’t want to think too long about his own statement because it was well within Ed’s reach, after all the small (and grandiose) things he had done that resulted in him either shredding the coat or losing it all together.

The privates who were sparring with one another stopped to watch as Edward Elric, the golden-haired savior of Amestris, the People’s Alchemist, walked up to pair. Ed took off his coat in a swift tug and placed it on the grass a few steps away from the makeshift ring on the yard. Then came the waist cape, which for all intents and purposes, only served to be a nuisance to Ed in particular because his legs always felt a little too warm and the feeling of the extra fabric bothered him when it brushed up against his auto-mail calf. He stood there, in front of two privates who were not bothering to turn their attention away, in his blue trousers and black sleeveless shirt with his arms crossed in front of him like earlier. The stance itself was intimidating enough when it was from a colonel, but this one in particular made everyone stand up straighter.

“Names, soldiers.”

The two men in front of Ed saluted him and spoke.

“Private Moore, sir!”

“Private Buchanan, sir!”

Ed looked at the two men, taking in their appearances. They both stood around Mustang’s height and looked as though the physical training was doing them well, in terms of physical appearance. He could take them both on easily.

“Privates Moore and Buchanan, do you have a personal grudge against each other?”

The two men in question turned to one another, dumbfounded. It was Moore who spoke.

“No, sir. We have no grudge against each other.” Ed looked to Buchanan, who had the same yellow-blond hair that he related back to Lieutenant Colonel Hawkeye.

“We do not dislike each other in the slightest, sir.”

Ed tapped a finger against his chin. This would not do.

“Then please, tell me why you two are trying to murder each other when you were told to spar?” The frustration was palpable and the two men shrank away from Ed as he glared down at them. “You,” he pointed to Moore, “could have almost killed him!” Ed redirected his finger at Buchanan, who was starting to resemble an ostrich that just desperately wanted to bury its head in the sand. “Had Buchanan not caught himself at the last second, he would have been in the hospital finding out that he might not ever be able to walk again for the rest of his life!”

Everyone flinched, except for Mustang, who hadn’t moved this entire time. Mustang would have normally been the one to do this, but it seemed that the pressure that the Fullmetal Alchemist could impose was far superior to the new and upcoming privates in the Amestrian Military, and especially those from the West or Central.

“I’ll ask again. What is the point of you two committing near-murder during a sparring session?”

This time, the two men thought carefully as they were confused.

“Was that not sparring, sir?” There was no malice or sarcasm, but genuine confusion. Moore scratched his head sheepishly.

Now that Ed thought about it, they weren’t the only two who were struggling to spar correctly. The displays of combat spanning from that morning till the present were plagued with poor form, dangerous takedowns, faulty defense tactics, and an overall absence of care.

Ed rubbed the back of his head and set about to tie his hair up into a long ponytail; he wrapped the leather cord tightly around the base of his hair and centered it before tying it off and tugging it for maximum security.

“Your Sergeant is Ular, correct?” Ed remembered meeting the man once before and the memory was poor. Not necessarily because Ed had a bad memory, but rather because Ular had left a shitty first impression and was left feeling bitter that such a man, along with countless others, had not been purged from the military with the overhaul in staff all those years ago. He would bring it up with Mustang, who he was sure would change that man’s position with a swift signature.

Ed looked past the two men and saw the rest of the privates nodding in response. No wonder their fighting was absolute shit.

“Damn…” He thought carefully about what he should do next, weighing the options in his head when a proverbial light switched on and he immediately made eye contact with Mustang, who was already wearing a smug grin. Ed smirked and Mustang raised an eyebrow in response, before sighing and going to take of his cap. There was a wave of whispers and gasps as Mustang pushed his hair back and took off his long coat.

“We’re only going to do this once, so pay close attention. I will not stand for Sergeant Ular’s piss poor oversight, understood?”

A chorus of ‘yes sir!’s flooded the field with quick salutes as the privates huddled around the makeshift sparring mat, trying to get a good view of what would be spoken about for the months to come. No one in their right minds would have believed that the Fullmetal Alchemist would take the time out of his day to spar as a _demonstration_ when he was notorious for his successful missions all around Creta, Aerugo, and Drachma.

Ed stretched his arms and glanced over his shoulder to see Mustang rolling up his sleeves.

“Frankly, I don’t trust any of you to spar with me. Your form, posture, whatever, are all too sporadic and I’m not gonna have that on my conscience if I end up hurting any one of you all.”

Moore spoke up.

“Then, uh, how will you demonstrate proper sparring, sir?”

“With me, private.” Ed could hear the privates’ eyes move from his figure to the Führer’s own. Even rarer than witnessing one national hero spar was to see him fight hand-to-hand with the leader of Amestris. Some of the soldiers fought the urge to pinch themselves awake.

The two men took their places on the mat and lowered their centers of gravity. They looked like animals, tense and prepared to leap at the other at a moment’s notice.

“You’re not gonna break on me, are you?” Ed smirked.

“Please, as if you could put a dent in me.”

“I hope you’re ready for me to drop your ass on the mat, bastard.” There were a couple of loud gasps in the crowd. Who in their right minds would have the gall, the audacity, to call the Führer a bastard? One Edward Elric. And Mustang just laughed.

“Feel free to try.” Mustang dropped his voice, a threatening tone that made Ed shiver in response.

They watched one another for any sudden movements or shifts in balance, taking in each other’s sight and waited. The silence that washed over the soldiers, Colonel, and Führer was palpable as the tension grew exponentially.

Ed was the one who made the first move, the blur of golden hair whipping past the privates at a breakneck speed towards the Führer, who set himself in a strong defensive stance. They would criticize each other about the hypocrisy of getting mad at Moore and Buchanan for not tapping out, but in that moment under a calm Spring sky and fighting the only person that served to be a decent enough challenge, excluding Al who could easily make Ed surrender, Ed had no intention of giving up. And apparently, neither did the bastard.

  * ·· ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·



“And that-,“ Ed huffed, trying to catch his breath while a prone Mustang was laying underneath him, “is how you pin them down as safely as possible.” The crowd of privates were in pure awe. All of a sudden, the stories they heard of the fighting that happened at Central Command three years ago all seemed plausible, especially taking into consideration how these two men were able to fight with such energy and vigor for what felt like an entire afternoon.

The air underneath Ed whooshed past him and the oxygen escaped his lungs as he was slammed down on the mat with a loud thud, Mustang leaning over him with a hand at the base of his neck and effectively keeping him from moving for fear of getting choked.

“And let this be the last lesson for today. Don’t get cocky until your opponent surrenders.” A bead of sweat trailed down Mustang’s face as Ed looked up at met his eyes. The dark irises stared back at him like an abyss.

Ed rolled his eyes in feigned annoyance and finally tapped out as Mustang applied pressure to his neck, making his head tingle lightly. Though, in hindsight, Ed couldn’t tell if that was from the pressure itself or the impact of getting the wind knocked out of him.

Mustang stood up and brushed himself off, looking a little worse for wear but still just as Führer-like as earlier. He offered a hand to Ed, which the blond man took and stood up himself.

“That’s it for today. Remember that for next time so you guys don’t end up killing each other.” Ed barely looked back as he grabbed his discarded clothes and walked back into the main building, not bothering to wait for Mustang as he headed straight to the lockers.

“Why did you sweep me like that? You know my left leg was injured last week.” Mustang spoke up from his right as Ed rummaged in his locker for a nice change of clothes. He had unfortunately left the majority back at his dorm and he was too lazy to get better ones when it was on the other side of the compound. He found a clean pair of pants and decently fresh shirt and set them to the front of the locker.

“You literally pinned me by my right shoulder! You of all people know how sensitive that area is, you ass.” Ed didn’t mean to, but he slammed the locker door louder than he meant to, making himself flinch at the sound of the impact.

“That I do.” Roy spoke with a lilt in his voice and a sneaking sparkle in his eye. “But still, you whacked my ankle with your auto-mail foot, so it was fair game.”

Ed turned towards the exit with his toiletries and towels in his hands and began to walk, but stopped halfway between the door to the shower and Roy.

“I’ll make it up with dinner, alright? I’ll even get takeout from that Aerugan café you love so much.” Ed rolled his eyes and grumbled. He turned to Roy, who was leaning up against the locker with his own towels in his hand. He was just watching Ed, taking in the sight before him. “Now, are you going to stand there staring at me like a pervert and whining about your foot or are you going to join me?” Ed pointed a thumb at the door that led to the showers.

“By all means, lead the way.”

They walked close to one another, hands grazing each other with light touches.

“By the way,” Ed spoke up as he held the door open, “that was really dirty, what you did back there.”

“What thing?” Roy raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t act like you didn’t mean to put your hand on my throat like that.”

“You’re going to complain about it _now_?” Roy asked incredulously. Sometimes he could never truly decipher what Ed meant. “You’ve never complained about it before!”

“Well, we’ve never had an _audience_ , have we?”

“We were sparring! It’s an actual takedown, Edward!” Roy tugged at his collar, loosening the fabric around his neck and letting Ed get a good look at his throat.

“Let’s see how you like it!” They both paused and Ed couldn’t help his face from turning bright red. That was as promiscuous as they came and _damn_ Roy for adding fuel to the fire, metaphorically speaking.

“Is that a promise?” Roy spoke low, his eyes turning dark and hungry. Ed cursed at himself and grabbed his hand, dragging them into the tiled room.

“You bastard.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave me a comment or kudos if you enjoyed and please stay safe!


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